Shorten the Session

I've seen no studies confirming my theory, but I would bet, based on observation and intuition alone, that it's valid.

I believe there's a direct correlation between the length of time a state legislature meets each year and the fiscal and financial health of the state in question. The shorter the session, the better off the state, in terms of its tax and regulatory climate, its economic circumstances, its overall quality of life. States where full-time legislators meet year-round, or for most of the year -- California comes to mind -- tend to be basketcases, while states with part-time, citizen-legislators -- like Wyoming, where lawmakers adjourned weeks ago -- are much better off.

The most dangerous thing in the world is a legislator with too much time on her hands. That's what turns so-called lawmakers into law-manufacturers. Make-work legislating is a dire threat to our pocketbooks, our personal liberties, our economic prosperity. The shorter the session, the safer we all are from overreaching and overweening government.

We aren't so bad off in Colorado, with a legislative session that lasts 120 days. Only a few weeks more and we'll be in the clear, at least for a year. But a lot of damage still can be done to a state in 120 days, as we've seen this session. That's why I like the idea, floated by State Sen. Gail Schwartz, a Democrat from Snowmass Village, of limiting the legislative session to 100 days. The idea won an endorsement today from The Pueblo Chieftain. And it has my support as well, for what that's worth.

In my opinion, the state would benefit immensely from a session of just 50 days, or 75 days. Think of all the mischief legislators couldn't make under such circumstances. But 100 days at least represents a step in the right direction.

Land of the Free?

Today, when Coloradans celebrate Independence Day, and their freedom, they’ll be living lives markedly and irrevocably less free, and less independent, than they were just a few days ago, when the 57 new laws approved during the 2009 legislative session went into effect.

It’s one of the great ironies that Americans still make such a fuss about Independence Day, even while their elected representatives shackle them down, and incrementally destroy their autonomy and self-reliance, by cranking out news laws in assembly-line fashion, most of which will prove to be Edsels.

Few if any of Colorado’s 57 new laws increase our freedom; on the contrary, I would bet that the vast majority of them are designed to inhibit liberty in some way. And what about the 51 new “fees” of various kinds that also took effect a few days ago, in a roundabout way to extract from us the fruits of our labors without having to say the word “tax”? How do they increase our independence and liberty?

These 57 new laws and 51 new fees were approved over a three month span by a part-time “citizen” legislature. Just imagine the volume of new laws being crank-out annually in states with full time legislatures. Add to that all the new laws that Congress is manufacturing each year, back in Washington, and the creeping tyranny of make-work legislating becomes shockingly apparent. In a truly free country, legislators would be rescinding 4 demonstrably-worthless laws for every new one they reluctantly approve.

I share the views of Tacitus, who said, “The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates.”

Happy Independence Day, everyone. But you’re celebrating something that’s incrementally being stolen away from you, right before your eyes.

Now go have a hotdog.